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Presents a technology forecast for 1997 that details major developments in the areas of computing software, hardware, communications, consumer electronics, power and energy, solid-state circuits, and circuits and systems.
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Several spectacular changes in the communications scene over the past few years will have a still stronger impact in 1997. Most obviously, the World Wide Web has been expanding. Showing a nice mixture of optimism and concern, the telecommunications establishment is mulling how best to exploit the Web commercially while deploying such packet-switched networks as the integrated services digital netw...
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Major power outages in various parts of the world have cast doubt on the electric power industry's claimed readiness for deregulation. Here, the author argues that, in the next few years, as service areas expand and bulk transfers of power grow ever greater, the electric utility industry's main technological challenge will be to maintain the reliability that customers now take almost for granted.
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This paper presents an analysis and forecast of consumer electronics developments in 1997. Products covered include television sets which can surf the Internet, advanced TV technologies, digital video disks and digital video cameras.
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Since 1994, computers have been outperforming automobiles-at least, in terms of units sold annually in the United States. Around the world, machines in use in 1996 totaled nearly 300 million units. In the United States, the number exceeded 100 million, over 95 percent of which were PCs, and more than one in three homes housed one or more computers. All in all, the computer and information industry...
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No end is in sight for the transistor's downsizing and hence for the growth in IC functionality-much of which is now being applied to features that enhance home and entertainment electronics. Architectural changes in microprocessors, for instance, admit multimedia, communications, and portable applications. The mounting technical challenges and expense of doubling the circuit density and performan...
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Many engineering software applications migrated last year from Unix to the Windows NT operating system. An unaccustomed camaraderie-interoperability-spread among applications from different vendors and between different stages of the design process. Meanwhile, the mainstream of electronic design got a new supreme court: formal verification. In the course of 1997, the migration from Unix to Windows...
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A year ago, the map of software engineering seemed etched in stone. At its imperial center was Microsoft Corp., surrounded by the minor feudal states that had to pay it homage and live under its sway. But by year's end, the Internet had destabilized the empire and it was unclear whether the center would hold. Thus, 1997 will likely be supercharged-with change-mostly for the good of software engine...
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New classes of materials auguring remarkable applications went under the microscope, so to speak, in 1996: notably, novel forms of carbon (buckyballs and nanotubes) and substances that switch from insulator to conductor in a strong magnetic field. Sonoluminescence, hitherto a lab curiosity, may manifest nuclear fusion. The term describes the ability of air bubbles in water to give off light when e...
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In ever greater numbers, new entries in the test and measurement field are heeding that litany of characteristics so prayed for by all electronikers: smaller, faster, cheaper-and easier to use. Bulky benchtop instruments are giving way to portable counterparts. The latest generation of microprocessors is boosting test equipment speed, while (relatively) inexpensive instruments are becoming the nor...
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A rapprochement among different vendors of industrial control equipment may be at hand if several systems presented as "open architecture" ones are any indication. Meanwhile, the advent of single-chip microcontrollers for motor drives, more powerful insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), and improved integration of sensors with power devices are salient advances on the factory floor. The new ...
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This paper presents an overview of technology development highlights for 1997. This summer will see the Earth invading Mars as the United States renews its efforts to explore the Red Planet. Another beachhead in space will take shape in late 1997 as the assembly of the International Space Station starts after more than 10 years of planning. In the defense arena, technology of President Ronald Reag...
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In many areas, the electronics industry has done well by its environmental responsibilities. But these and the related challenges of human health and worker safety are not static targets. New tools are constantly being created, market pressures felt, and scientific data produced. This paper argues that responding appropriately calls for continuous adaptation and change.
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Three devices released last year or planned for this one superbly illustrate the breadth of the medical profession's interests and its intimacy with electronics. At one extreme of medical care is major surgery, with brain surgery surely the most frightening. One day patients undergoing this radical procedure may take some comfort in the knowledge that their surgeon's instruments have the warp of m...
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